After the fires
10 years after the devastating fires in the Snowy Mts, recovery is mixed, with some areas coming back strongly but the snow gums and alpine ash were incinerated and the gums are only slowly recovering.PT0M0S 620 349
''Welcome to the loo with a view.'' Andrew Claridge stands on a large flat rock perched halfway down a mountain overlooking a steep valley in Kosciuszko National Park.
Around his feet are cone-shaped quoll scats.
Dr Claridge, who has studied spotted-tailed quolls in the area for more than a decade, says the cat-sized carnivores adopt the rather smelly behaviour of using their excrement to communicate their readiness to mate. Flat rocks provide the perfect latrine site.
After the fires: The area devastated by fires in 2003. Photo: Nick Moir
This particular latrine has an impressive vista, looking out over a mosaic of eucalypt trees, cypress pines and tussocks of thick native grasses.
But had Dr Claridge been standing here 10 years ago the mountainside, and vast stretches of the state's largest national park, would have been unrecognisable. In January 2003 a series of lightning strikes ignited a succession of fires that burned through almost two-thirds of the park's vegetation.
Kosciuszko is unique because of its variety of ecosystems, from the low-lying endangered yellowbox and white box communities to part of the country's only mainland alpine region.
Some vegetation has recovered quickly, but gums are slow to thrive. Photo: Nick Moir
The fire spared no system, and its magnitude was compared to the 1939 wildfires, when flames swept through the park and travelled to the coast.
''After the 2003 fire, the only impression you could get of this landscape was total incineration and devastation,'' says Dr Claridge, a wildlife biologist with the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Countless animals died. A year later Dr Claridge counted half the number of quolls than the previous year. ''As far as you could see in any direction was black. Your first impression in such an environment is that it is destroyed forever.''
But each year since Dr Claridge has watched parts of the park slowly recover, and more remarkably, transform into somewhat different ecosystems. ''Little by little, bit by bit, the environment is becoming greener and is changing, and changing for the good,'' he says.
One of the first things to sprout was a rare variety of fungus. Dr Claridge and US fungi expert Jim Trappe suggest its role was to slow erosion by holding the soil together after the vegetation had been razed. Once plants started to grow back, the fungi disappeared, says Dr Claridge.
In the southern section of the park, known as Byadbo, the yellowbox gums have regenerated in large numbers.
One of the most obvious changes has been the proliferation of acacias, whose seeds sprout following a fire.
Many birds have also flocked to the area, including flame robins, golden whistlers and white-throated treecreepers, whose populations had been drought affected.
Even Dr Claridge's beloved quolls recovered well. Activity at latrine sites suggests their populations have now stabilised to pre-fire numbers.
But while the lower Snowy has transformed since the fires, the alpine regions have struggled to regenerate.
Alpine ecologist Ken Green says much of the high-altitude alpine ash forests were wiped out and would grow back from seeds over the next 15 years.
The snow gum forests had also been severely damaged by the fires and, while the trees would regenerate, it would take 30 years to grow to decent heights.
''The canopy birds haven't come back yet either,'' Dr Green said.